Lonnie Bridge Jumping by Paul Guillimette

The table is upright and resting on two of the table legs which are on the ground and the piece gets braced to the wall to hold it parallel to the wall. When the artist lived in Montana he sort of had a foster kid....he used to take him and his friends out into the country to jump off bridges into rivers. It was great fun. At that time the artist came across this old oak table in a basement of a house he was working on....it was half buried in dirt, yet , somehow still sturdy and strong. It reminded him of Lonnie who had been neglected as well and somehow remained sturdy and strong.They became a perfect match for this piece.

The art I make with found materials is initially inspired in the moment of finding. Coming across beauty in unexpected places at no particular time causes an excitement deep inside of me, much like the excitement I felt as a kid ﬁnding golf balls in the woods or river ( I was an avid golf ball hunter and golfer), or feel now meeting a beautiful stranger who sees me back. Walking with my good friend Raul once, I was trying to explain to him the “ﬁnding” . We were near some discarded wood I felt compelled to go look at and he stated succinctly an idea I wish I had thought of years ago when trying write an artist statement. He said, “ You wake up sleeping art.” What I do with the materials back in my studio takes many different directions Primarily, I seek to reveal that once-sleeping beauty in ways that can be funny, metaphorical, ironic or just plain beautiful.